Switzerland-based biotechnology company HAYA Therapeutics has raised $65m in a Series A funding round, led by Sofinnova Partners and Earlybird Venture Capital
Other participants include ATHOS, Eli Lilly and Company, +ND Capital, Alexandria Venture Investments, and LifeLink Ventures.
Also, existing investors Apollo Health Ventures, BERNINA Bioinvest, Longview Ventures, 4see ventures, and Schroders Capital contributed to the financing.
The funds will support the clinical development of HAYA’s lead candidate, HTX-001, aimed at treating heart failure, and expand its RNA-guided regulatory genome pipeline.
Also, it will underscore confidence in HAYA’s pioneering work in precision RNA-guided medicines for chronic and age-related diseases.
HAYA Therapeutics Co-founder and CEO Samir Ounzain said: “This is a defining moment for HAYA as we are advancing our lead programme into the clinic.
“This funding validates our organisation, pioneering approach and vision for improving the way chronic and complex diseases are treated by creating a new generation of therapies that reprogramme disease-driving cell states into healthy ones.
“We’re excited that Sofinnova Partners, Earlybird and our syndicate of investors share our vision for the potentially industry-changing nature of our platform as we move beyond traditional approaches by leveraging novel therapeutic targets emerging from the regulatory genome.”
HAYA Therapeutics is specialised in developing programmable therapeutics that target regulatory RNAs from the dark genome.
The advanced approach seeks to reprogramme pathological cell states across a spectrum of diseases, including cancer, cardiovascular, and metabolic disorders.
The company plans to utilise the funds to initiate clinical trials for HTX-001, focusing initially on non-obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (nHCM).
Concurrently, HAYA aims to enhance its platform capabilities and broaden its pipeline to include therapies for pulmonary fibrosis, obesity, and other age-related diseases.
Its in-house platform decodes the regulatory genome, often referred to as the “genome’s dark matter,” which makes up 98% of the human genome.
The company can precisely identify and modulate pathogenic cell states across various diseases by integrating multimodal functional genomics with proprietary computational and machine learning technologies.
To strengthen its strategic growth, HAYA has assembled an industry-leading executive team to drive business and clinical development and foster strategic collaborations.
Its partnership with Eli Lilly focuses on RNA-based drug targets for obesity and metabolic disorders, marking one of the largest collaborations in the regulatory genome space.
